Gated Communities, Charter Schools, and GROSS POINTE BLANK

Do you remember the scene in GROSS POINTE BLANK where John Cusack rides along with his one time high school buddy to a home in a gated community his buddy is trying to sell?  Half way through the sale another old high schooler drives up in his community patrol car, pistol strapped to his hip, lookin' for somebody to bust.  The rent-a-cop explains to Cusack how he took a two day course on law enforcement or something and then was sent out into the neighborhood to keep intruders away.

Gated communities!  I hate them; however, if I lived in one I'm sure I could find a nifty rationalization to explain my situation.  There are lots of great people who live in gated communities.  I would go so far as to say that the majority of the people in gated communities are well-intentioned and just want what is best for their families.

But that doesn't lessen the damage gated communities do.  Trayvon Martin would still be alive today if it weren't for gated communities, whether actual or metaphorical.  The creation of such communities is just another step in the stripping away of The Commons, the heart of what made our democracy work.  If you no longer share a Commons (again, actual or metaphorical, doesn't make much difference) you no longer have a community.  Instead, you have a bunch of different enclaves, all with different vested interests, all inherently distrusting of the enclave across the holler, the people who butter their bread on the wrong side, or who were insensitive enough to be born black.

I hate charter schools for the same reason.  They are nothing more than educational gated communities, all making love to whichever community interest will get them the most money, the most enrollment.  And just like gated communities, the folks who put their kids in charter schools are well-intentioned.  They want what's best for their kids.  No one has told them (or they don't want to admit) that what is good for their kids is not necessarily good for other kids.  Putting a kid in a school focusing on science or the arts or languages or whatever kills two birds with one stone.  It helps the kid get higher test scores and thus will help him get that acceptance to Harvard where he can launch his path to the Supreme Court, but studies show that while ability/interest grouping helps kids who are already motivated (actually, whose parents are already motivated) to succeed, achievement suffers for those kids who are stuck in the public schools who are getting less money as the charters take away some of their funding.  Their motivation suffers because all of the kids who were truly motivated are sitting in charter schools.  Their IQ scores actually go down.

But fuck 'em.  If they don't have what it takes to get into the charter, if their parents are too busy working four jobs to make a commitment to the school, if they don't have the transportation, well whose fault is that?  Meanwhile all those little parent driven over-achievers in charter schools continue to plow through curricula, continue to focus on the next test looming on the horizon.  They will grow up and become Ted Cruz, brilliant yes, but totally oblivious to the needs of anyone who isn't him.

There.  I just had to get that off my chest.